MIT Technology Review, one of the leading sites presenting new technologies affecting our lifes, has recently posted an article in which it explained why 2019 might finally bring the integration of blockchain into our daily life. One of the three reasons that speaks in favour of the aforementioned integration are the so called smart contracts.
What are smart contracts?
Smart contracts are basically "bits of code that execute an agreement between two parties" (MIT Technology Review, 2019). That does not sound really attractive, but knowing that smart contracts can save your money and time due to the elimination of the intermediaries brings an appealing tone to them. In order for any smart contract to execute there has to be some kind of connection between the real-world information and the smart contract. This connection is called an oracle.
What can be used as an oracle?
In the simplest cases the oracle problem can be solved by using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIs are messengers that take your request, send it to the system and tell the system what to do with your request. After that, it sends the system's response back to you. Let's take a look at an example. You would like to book a room in a hotel. You first go to your favourite accommodation search site and then type the name of your hotel, arrival date, departure date, room type and number of guests (just to name a few inputs) in the search fields. In order to get the available accommodations based on your search criteria, the API finds all the results matching your request and send them back to your accomodation search service, which displays the results. So APIs can be used as the oracles for the smart contracts. However, there are cases in which APIs cannot be used, whether because they simply do not exist or could not work. And in this cases You are needed.
"For some smart contracts there’s an API. For everything else, there’s Verity" (Verity,2018)
Verity is the decentralized oracle for smart contracts. It can collect real-world information, verify it and send it to any smart contract by the means of the wisdom of the crowds. This term is related to the fact that a group of people is collectively smarter then each separate individual. In Verity each group member provides his/her own information and the final information that is send to the smart contract is based on the consensus reached among the participants. It is due to the people that the information is gathered and verified and not due to the API.
And here comes Your opportunity!
Verity has so far offered almost 600 different events in which users reported various data related to sports events, eSports events, artificial intelligence tasks (image recognition, audio event recognition, handwriting, sentiment analysis, inappropriate content filtering etc.) and even to the recent Brexit deal vote. All you need to do is to join a selected event and report the required data once the event starts. If the consensus is reached the final information is provided to the developers and all the people that were part of the consensus are rewarded by receiving Verity (VTY) tokens. Verity platform is currently in alpha testing, but a full final product is expected to come out in Q1 2019.
How can you join and participate in Verity events?
- First check the list of the requirements here.
- Go to Verity Alpha webpage by using my referral link (if you use the provided link you and I will be awarded with 1000 VTY tokens upon your successful registration and you being part of the consensus in at least 3 Verity Alpha events) and click on"Sign up" in the upper right corner of the page. If you do not want to use my referral link for any reason, just click here.
- Fill in your email, password and referral code (7C08436) and click "Create an account". Referral code field is not mandatory, but as described above the code brings you reward in amount of 1000 Verity (VTY) tokens.
- Check your inbox for email "Confirm your email to join Verity", open it and click "Confirm your email" button.
- Upon confirming your email you will be redirected to Verity Alpha wepage. In order to be able to participate in Verity Alpha Events you now need to add your wallet address. Hover over your your email address in the upper right corner of the page and select "Settings".
- Insert your first name, last name and wallet address and click "Save changes".
Congratulations, you are now ready to join the events!
Would you like to learn more about Verity?
If you would like to learn more, you are more than welcome to visit my website All About Verity, which encompasses the majority of the most useful information about Verity. If you rather prefer just pure pieces of information, you can take a look at my All About Verity Google Sheet document.
Do you have any questions?
Feel free to drop any questions and/or remarks in the comments.